4,000 miles gets you to Florida

Well, I guess I'll start off by answering Jacqueline's question. We've run into a few good food stops at the ballparks, like Sheriff Blalock's Nachos in Houston and the Brave's Chophouse in Atlanta. Every stadium seems to have one unique thing, which is pretty fun to look at. As you can imagine, we're on a tight budget so we usually don't get the luxury of eating all of those specialties, but that we aren't very disappointed because of it. I mean, they had garlic fries in San Diego and Los Angeles, but I didn't even bother with them because once you've had Gilroy Garlic Fries at Pac Bell, everything else is just an imitation.

The one thing we have eaten at every ballpark is hot dogs. Now, we can all agree that hot dogs are not really gourmet food items and you don't have to do much to make a decent hot dog. But in our travels we have discovered that there are a lot of things that you can do to screw up a hot dog. Maybe we're just picky eaters, but Dan distinctly remembers the Dodgers Dogs were not up to par. They had been sitting under heat lamps for god knows how long which made for soggy bread and bland taste. I hope that gives you all a good sense of food at the ballparks.

Right now we're in St. Petersburg, Florida, home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Our time in Florida has been interesting so far. After our 9-hour drive from Atlanta we checked into the Days Inn. We were pretty excited about the hotel because we got it at the very reasonable price of $50. But we quickly came to find out that the room was worth no more that $50. The first room they put us in hadn't been turned over from the last occupants, and the second room had iffy plumbing to say the least. And yesterday we left the Clearwater Threshers game early went the game was postponed at the end of the 8th inning due to thunderstorm warnings. So we stayed long enough to get our Ryan Howard bobble heads and a couple souvenir cups, and then hit the road.

And our weekend is probably only going to get more interesting as we drive 250 miles to make it for the 1:00 AM first pitch tomorrow in Miami and then drive another 350 miles to the Florida border after the game. That means in the next thirty some hours we are going to drive 600 miles, watch to baseball games, and try to get some decent rest.

Rainy Shutouts to Royston Georgia

Our stay in Atlanta is coming to an end, but we did get to see a couple excellent games. After Curt Schilling had a less than stellar performance on Monday, the Sox bounced back the next two nights with Josh Beckett and Julian Tavarez. Tuesday night was a classic pitchers’ duel between Beckett and Tim Hudson, but Beckett proved to be the calmer under pressure and didn’t allow a run until the game hit a rain delay in the 6th - which proved to be his last inning of work as well. The bullpen came in to close out the game and keep the Braves scoreless. Then Tavarez followed up by retiring the first nine batters he faced on Wednesday. Once again his perfect game was broken up right after Dan and I realized it. We didn’t say anything, but some little kid behind us had to open his mouth and the next hit was a liner up the middle.



The Red Sox were never really in trouble though because the offense made their presence known on the third pitch of the game, when JD Drew hit a towering homerun to right field. Coco Crisp hit a three-run homer later that same inning. Big Papi and Manny Ramirez joined in on the fun with their own home runs in the 2nd and 7th innings respectively.

Just before the game started, we were both thinking about how there hadn’t been a big blowout in any of the 10 games we had seen so far. The most runs we saw by one team was probably the New Orleans Zephyrs, who scored nine. So, as you can imagine, we were both excited to see the Red Sox hit fest.

But, like I said, we're are leaving Atlanta very soon, which is a little said because we enjoyed the southern hospitality we were receiving. Today we took a day trip to the Ty Cobb museum in Royston, Georgia to pay respect to one of the greatest players the game has seen. It was a little surprising to find that the museum was only a few small rooms inside a larger building, but it was still a very worthwhile trip. We found yet another map that included all the special museum and baseball fan havens around the nation, such as the Ted Williams Museum in Tampa Bay and the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame in Kansas City.

Tomorrow we will drive all the way down to Clearwater, Florida where will may or may not catch a Clearwater Threshers game dependant on how exhausted we are from the drive.

Some of you may be wondering why exactly we would bother driving all the way down to Florida to watch baseball, and, well I don’t blame you for asking. But there are many reasons to do so. First, we’re never going to be down here again any time soon, so we might as well just bite the bullet. Secondly, we need to kill some time before we head up north for the first time in our travels. And lastly, we are lucky enough to see some great pitching match-ups while we’re down there. On Saturday we will see the Devil Rays’ ace Scott Kazmir pitch against the Dodgers – a game that also includes free Don Zimmer bobble heads. (AWESOME!) And on Sunday, we get so see a duel between two of the best lefty pitchers in the game today, Dontrelle Willis vs. Johan Santana.

Stadium #6: Turner Field in Atlanta

That's right we rolled into Atlanta yesterday for the sixth stadium on our tour, which also put us over 3,000 miles overall. Now we arrived at around 4pm, which, one would think, would give us plenty of time to be at the game in time for the first pitch. WRONG! It took us about 2 and a half hours to drive 30 miles from our home stay in Alpharetta to the ballpark. It was unfortunately reminiscent of our commute to Dodger Stadium, expect, unlike Los Angeles, the skies were clear and the air was clean. So overall we would take Atlanta over LA, especially because they aren't Dodgers fans here. But let's focus on the city we are in now.

Atlanta, aside from the nightmare of driving, has given us a lot to be impressed with. The game yesterday was a little bit disappointing as we watched Curt Schilling get shelled for 10 hits in only 5 innings, and scatter thunderstorms made things just that much more interesting. But when you look on the bright side, our seats were actually so crappy and high enough in the upper deck that we were under the overhang and the rain didn't affect us. And even though the Red Sox lost, we were able to occupy ourselves by watching the crowd around us.

And boy do they know how to watch a baseball game in Atlanta. The entire stadium was electric all night long with the stereo pounding and the fans cheering, "Let's go Bra-aves!" while simultaneously starting the wave, which was easily the best one we've seen so far. And on a side note they knew how to counteract the Red Sox cheers much better than the Diamondback fans could, but I can't hold that against them because they have been a major league team for more than eight years. The HD Jumbotron lit the place up and then the giant drum just to the left of it was a nice homey touch. And let's not overlook the all-important "Tomahawk Chop." Some of you may have seen it on TV, and laugh or scoff at it. But all of that changes when you first experience it. If I didn't have Red Sox fans surrounding me, I could easily see myself being sucked into the Chop.

We try to put a grade on each stadium and city by answering a very simple question: If I lived here, would I want to go see a game from time to time? I've been sort of ho-hum at a few ballparks, but I can safely say that if I lived in Atlanta (and didn't have any previous major league affiliations) I would most definitely be a Braves fan, and I am very happy to know that we get to stay here for the next few days and watch two more games.

Tonight Josh Beckett will go for his 10th win against Tim Hudson, so it should be a good match-up. And it's Braves rally rag day too, so we will try to get to the game early. Taking into account the traffic, that means we should leave.......now.

New Orleans Zephyrs

Last night we added a ballpark to the nationwide tour: Zephyr Stadium, home of the New Orleans Zephyrs - the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets. It was especially exciting because we got to watch the Rebuilt Brass Band play in center field after the game ended. But right now Dan and I are both pretty tired after driving into Alabama, which is our 7th state so far, so we decided to just leave you a list of road trip fun facts and slightly important things we have learned along the way.

It is important to check the radio for some local channels everyone once in a while, because you may find a gem such as 95.7 "The Bayou - New Orleans' only classic rock station"

You can legally drive really, really fast in Texas.

We have only lost one thing so far, and that was Dan's shampoo bottle back in Irvine

Trucker stops, cruise control and air conditioning make long road trips bearable.

It is just short of impossible to synchronize gas and urination levels.

Driving across the country brings you back to the days of playing Cruisin' USA on Nintendo 64, and you eventually discover that the video game is surprisingly accurate.

Tomorrow we head over to Atlanta to watch the Red Sox play the Braves. Schilling is on the mound as the Red Sox hope to extend their current win streak, but I'm not going to talk about their past three games for obvious reasons.